It never ends...So today I get a call from my mechanic and he informs me that my car is never actually in 5th, it's in forth, in otherwords, it's never hitting 5th. He said it's the transmission, but not quite sure what. He recommended I change I get a tranny service and go from there. Any idea's? Please!

 

interesting, your gear oil may not be correct, how does it shift into other gears(smooth? harsh? etc) will it shift under any throttle percentage or do you need to coax it into shifting? there could be something clogging a passage in your valve body on the tranny, a failed check ball, or maybe a stuck gear selection pressure valve(can't remember specific name). or it could be some dirt or pebbel that got into the valve body from a past tranny oil change or something. in any case i think that its in the transmission valve body, shouldn't be too expensive and they should be able to fix it without dropping the tranny.

 

yea that is weird usually the first gear is the 1 u have problems with

 

oh it COULD also be something electronic, either the transmission ecu or the solonoids inside the tranny(again on the valve body), i don't think its inside the tranny further than the valve body as its not trying to shift into 5th right? let us know when they figure it out, i would start by flushing the transmission fluid, and test it after that. why did you bring it in in the first place?

 

This whole problem has popped up probably in the last month or so, I wasn't really aware of the situation. For the most part, the shifting is fairly smooth, its an auto so doesn't really require paying much attention. Haven't tried it in tiptronic mode yet to see if the problem repeats, i'm sure it will. Ive had the car 2 years and this is the first time I've replaced the tranny fluid. I told him to go ahead and swap out the fluid and go from there, figured it couldn't hurt. Other than that, I don't really know what to do if it doesn't fix the problem? Should I head to the dealer? Transmission specialists?

 

did the problem come up before you swapped the fluid or is that your hopeful way of fixing it? i would try a tranny specialist(AAA transmissions) ask them to diagnose it and let you know whats wrong with it before they do any work, then come back here and tell us the diagnosis. i would try to stay away from the dealership unless its a warantee thing, or a recall type thing.

 

I haven't swapped the fluid, yet...My mechanic is suggesting it as a possible solution, he did stress possible though.

 

lol im stressing possible solution as well, it may flush out any debris that somehow got into your tranny, although unlikely. but hey give it a try, it might just fix it for ya and all will be good again. i will try to find my transmissions book to freshen up a little, but im pretty sure my first diagnosis is correct, valve body check valve failure, or gear selector pressure valve stoppage. its also slightly possible that your torque converter could be going, the oil pump in the converter could be losing pressure, this could cause all gears to shift normally but it would never generate enough pressure to move into 5th gear. when you get the fluid flushed try manually shifting it into 5th via tip, this should help us in figuring it out.

 

Thanks, I'll get back to you guys...

 

the more i think about it i don't think its the oil pump, probibly what i said before though. call audi and see if there were many problems like yours and if there was a recall or something.